British animation studio The Line produced an animated short titled "Everything I Can See From Here". Traditionally reliant on 2D graphic applications, The Line experimented with 3D and used Maya to help bring part of a character to life.

In my daily AREA activities, I get to come into contact with lots of talented artists, high-end technical users and hear about some pretty interesting projects. One such project is The OceanMaker, headed by Lucas Martell. To sum it up, The OceanMaker is an animated short film that is looking for some online love (and funding). Nowadays, with crowdfunding being so ubiquitous, it is hard for everyone to get an equal chance under the spotlight and make cool things happen. I was able to talk to Lucas about The OceanMaker on what it is like to pull together a team of people and jumpstart an idea.

Last month, Pedro Conti released an animated short "One More Beer", which featured a large and hairy Viking (a beautifully rendered one, that is). I tried to get a hold of him, but he was finally kicking it back on a trip across Thailand and China. Pedro is back in Brazil now, and we undoubtedly talked about the Viking, past projects, collaboration with Dario Picciau and life-changing work with a 5-man studio out of Sweden called Meindbender.

While surfing the great Interweb, I came across this 3d animated cartoon character, "The Fox", created by Algerian artist Rabie Rahou. Rabie made "The Fox" in Maya, rendered in mental ray. Some concept, wireframes and rendered images, along with a short animation clip of "The Fox" -- check it out!